


Of Carpools and Playlists

by peterplanet



Category: tom holland - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 14:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterplanet/pseuds/peterplanet
Summary: in which tom meets the reader in his daily carpool to set and they make a playlist to pass the time





	Of Carpools and Playlists

Tom meets her for the first time in his carpool to set. He can’t drive himself because American roads are a terrifying concept to the British-born man and he had no semblance of a thought as to how big America is. He can’t walk to set here from his hotel, so the directors put together a ride with one of the interns on set.

“Hi!” She chirps with a smile on her face as he opens the door to her car. “Thomas, yeah?” She’s friendly, he notices, but not too friendly or overbearing in the way that she speaks to him.

She has to know his name, he thinks, because he’s sure that the person in charge  _must_  have told her the name of the person that she’ll be picking up; however, he finds it a nice sentiment that she chose to ask for his name anyway. He finds that she’s smiling at him—a habit that he’s noticed of most Americans—and it somehow makes him feel calmer just to see it.

“Tom is fine, darling,” he assures her with the pet-name that slips out before he can stop it.

He buckles his seatbelt with his heart racing at the way that her cheeks flush behind her makeup that’s barely there. Tom thinks that she’s beautiful even if he doesn’t know how to express it because he just met her. He just met her, and yet he’s never felt more connected to anyone else in his life. His seatbelt clicks into place in the time that it takes all of this to rush through his head and he pauses with the idea that she makes his thoughts rush and his heart pump with just the idea of being flirty with her.

“Alright, Tom,” comes her reply through soft lips that he can’t help but think of kissing.

He always heard that men are more visual when it comes to sexual or romantic relationships but he had never thought of himself as such. He had always been so focused on the women in his life as more than a body that he had never really, truly stopped to admire the beauty that he was allowed to witness.

“And, uh, what can I call you?” Tom stutters only slightly and feels his heart sink at the realization that he has known her for all of two minutes and she already has him in this shape. He’s already stuttering her name and trying to be smooth with her and he doesn’t even  _know her name_. He can tell that she’s going to drive him crazy for the entirety of their acquittance (although he can’t help but want for more with her—the nameless girl who helps out on set and was generous enough to give him a ride every day for the next few months.

“(Y/N),” she replies so smoothly with a smile so gentle that Tom doesn’t even have time to process a flirtatious reply ( _“a beautiful name to match a beautiful woman_ ” or “ _all the best women are named that, I assume_ ”) before she adds on to say, “but darling sounds nice in your accent, too.”

It comes so easily from her that Tom is honestly surprised by it because she seems to make everything so  _easy._ She makes this first car-ride to the set on a bleary Monday morning easy and the small-talk and banter that she’s providing just comes so easily to her that he finds it difficult to look at her for more than a few seconds at a time. If her gaze even passes by his when he looks at her, Tom feels as though his entire face is on fire and he can’t breathe properly. They haven’t even formally known each other for more than ten minutes and Tom is already developing major feelings for her.

He has a feeling that his time on set for Homecoming is going to be one of the most incredible times of his life. But maybe that’s just the pretty girl sitting in the driver’s seat that makes him feel that way.

* * *

Harrison has yet to fly in to be on set with Tom. He’s not really needed professionally quite yet—as most of what they’re doing right now is just blocking scenes and getting used to speaking without scripts and in front of cameras—but Tom finds that he needs his best friend in the same country as him more than ever in this moment. He needs him to be here so that he can judge this girl’s character and tell him what he thinks, so that they can talk to each other face-to-face instead of with a five-hour time difference standing in between them.

“She’s incredible, Haz,” he says quietly over FaceTime the night after his first carpool with (Y/N), “she’s funny and charming and has amazing comebacks. She didn’t make the ride feel awkward at all, even though it was our first meeting so things were  _bound_ to be a little bit awkward, and—”

Tom is interrupted to the spluttering protests of his best-friend’s grinning face. “You’re telling me that you only met her  _today?_  She hasn’t been driving you for a week now?”

“Well, yeah, I mean today was the first day of blocking so she didn’t have to drive me before,” Tom replies with his face falling into a frown. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Tom,” Harrison laughs out through a shake of his head that comes back grainy through the wi-fi in the hotel room, “you’ve been going on about her like you’ve known her all your life. I didn’t think some American girl could get you  _this_ whipped after just one day.”

Tom laughs and rubs the back of his neck at the realization that he can’t hide anything from his best-friend, even if they’re divided by an ocean and shitty wi-fi.

“I guess she’s not just some American girl then.”

* * *

It’s a week full of amazing conversation and witty banter later that Tom brings up the topic of music with (Y/N). The rides so far have been tuned into the local radio station and, while Tom very much enjoys the music that they play, he finds that he wants to learn more about the girl who drives him Monday through Friday. He wants to know her favorite color and her favorite food and what stupid joke makes her laugh like no other; he wants to know how to make her smile and feel real when she feels like everything is turned to static around her. More importantly, Tom wants to become her friend before he will ever dream of becoming her boyfriend—or better yet, her lover—and he has come to form the belief that someone’s music taste can say a lot about them.

“So,” he begins as he buckles himself into the seat with two coffees made from his hotel room’s little coffee maker balanced precariously in one hand, “I have a proposition.”

“And what’s that?” (Y/N) asks as she takes the coffees from him to place them in the cup-holders sitting between them.

He tries not to think about the way that their hands brush and how soft her skin feels and how much smaller her stature when compared to his. He tries not to take her hand in his and hold it in his lap while he looks over at her with a gaze that he hopes doesn’t spell out admiration.

“I’m not complaining about the radio station that you’ve chosen for us to listen to everyday, but I don’t think that it’s you.” Tom offers her a shy smile as though she’s going to reject him outright and tell him to get out of her car.

But she isn’t any of these things because she’s (Y/N). (Y/N) who drives him to set of her own free will at this point because he knows that the directors would have set something else up if she wanted. (Y/N) who buys him coffee on Monday morning with cream and sugar on the side because she doesn’t know what he likes but didn’t want to buy a coffee for just herself when she’d be driving him to set. (Y/N) who laughs at all of his corny jokes. (Y/N) who lets him practice his lines and even took the time to memorize the lines of the other characters so that he could practice with her.

At the end of the day, she’s (Y/N) and it drives him crazy because he’s never met someone so dizzyingly kind and witty all at once. So, it should come to him at no surprise that she’s happy to hear him out and willing to hear any alternative ideas that he has to the predicament that he’s shining light on.

“And what do you offer we do instead?” She quips easily through a sip of her coffee. “And thank you for the coffee by the way.”

The smile that she gives him makes his stomach flutter and sends him into a quick prayer to whomever may be listening that his cheeks aren’t as red as they feel.

“I think that we should make a playlist together of all of the songs that we like,” he offers quietly with the color staying on his cheeks. He prays that she can’t see it in the rear-view mirror or the side-glances that she steals with her (e/c) glance every now and then. If she does she it, she doesn’t say anything because she’s (Y/N) and incredible and kind in a way that he didn’t really know was possible.

“And how do we keep this playlist from being a shit-post of random songs that we like?” She counters so easily that he feels his breath being taken away because he cannot believe that she isn’t making fun of him for this idea.

Tom has had experience with other girls before, but none of them have felt like she does. None of them made him feel so real and present with every laugh and breath that they take and no other girl has made his blood melt to stardust when his gaze crossed theirs. He cannot believe how easily she makes him forget his stardom and the fact that he’s going to film as Spider-Man because, with her, he feels like  _Tom._ He’s not Tom Holland, or Spider-Man, or any variation of the idea when he’s with her and it scares him to think of how easily she can tear all of that away from him. All that it takes is one glance and he’s wrapped up in her affection and tender-hearted nature because she puts stardust into his veins and looks at him like, maybe, he might just be doing the same for her.

“Well,” Tom begins with a quiet nervousness to his voice that he didn’t know he could manage, “I thought that we could put songs in that remind us of our conversations or the other person. Or even just our all-time favorite songs? I’m not too sure on all of the logistics, but I just thought that…maybe it could make our drives more enjoyable?”

“Are you saying that you don’t like spending time with me?” (Y/N) demands with a teasing smirk playing at her features that sends her (e/c) eyes into a sparkle that Tom just barely catches with how much attention she’s paying to the road in the moment.

“I’m saying the exact opposite, darling,” he assures her with a gentle smile in a tone that he hopes comes across as teasing. “I’m saying that I love spending time with you so much that I hear songs and they make me think of you.”

He passes her a grin that he pretends doesn’t send her cheeks into a blush. He gets his phone out to open his Spotify application before creating a new playlist. He thinks for a moment before posing the question of, “What should we title this playlist?”

“Hey, hey!” (Y/N) cries out with a laugh spilling from her lips in such a fashion that Tom truly believes he’s never heard something so beautiful before. “I never said that I was consenting to this idea! Maybe I prefer to listen to this radio station rather than your possibly-questionable music taste. How do I know that you’re not just going to put, like,  _Pesetas_  on the list to say that it reminds you of me? What if the playlist turns into you roasting me because I’m a bad driver or something?”

She passes Tom a glance that lets him know that everything is joking, but he still goes ahead and adds  _Pesetas_ as the first song to their hopefully-growing playlist that currently remains untitled.

“Tom, I swear to God if you put that as the first song…” She’s laughing again in her feather-light way that makes him just a little bit too dizzy for a twenty-one-year-old man.

“There’s a rule, y’know?” He teases in what he hopes is an easy way but knows comes out nervous and flustered because he’s joking with her like it’s as easy as breathing in a way that verges on flirting. “Once a song is added, it can’t be removed.”

“You’re playing this game pretty hard and fast, Holland,” (Y/N) quips so gently that it makes him smile like a bashful teenager who’s just discovering the perks of their sexual and romantic life with their first, real girlfriend.

“I’ll play at whatever speed you like as long as it’s with you, darling.”

* * *

They spend a few days adding songs to the playlist that remind them of each other. She chooses  _Pink_  for him with the excuse that it reminds her of how he constantly flirts with her before she insists that she doesn’t mind. In moments like that, it’s almost like he could kiss her without any complaints coming from her even though she’s sitting across the console and she’s driving. But of course, he doesn’t because he doesn’t want to cross any lines that they’ve subconsciously drawn for each other.

So, to counter the sexual implications behind that song, Tom counters with  _Talk Me Down_ to exemplify how he doesn’t expect anything from her but would love if something came of this because he’s never felt so close to another person before. She draws him in with every breath she takes and every off-key note she sings to the playlist that they’re forming between them.

Songs pass in the silences that they can’t fill and they both find themselves adding new ones as the days go by and Tom’s time is running out in the States. Harrison is there now and he keeps telling him to make a move because time will pass and then she’ll just be another memory stuck in his phone of playlists and witty banter. And he doesn’t want her to be so depletable as to say that he could easily remove the playlist from his Spotify when the memory of her becomes to overbearing or heavy to think about when they’re apart and they have no way of contacting one another. He wants her to be concrete in his life because no girl has ever made him feel so vulnerable and confident all at once; never has he encountered someone so flawlessly imperfect that it morphs itself into perfection when he looks at them and he knows that a feeling like that has to mean something.

He’s tired of wasting time a few weeks before the last scheduled day of recording. When they pull up to set and she’s getting ready to get out of the car, Tom grabs her wrist and instantly breaks the boundaries that he supposes he set up without even thinking. He’s never touched her before but  _God_ does he wish that he had, because now every inch of his skin feelings like the particles within every cell are buzzing against each other and he swears that he’s never before felt so alive.

“(Y/N), I need you to know that you mean a lot to me,” he finds himself saying as he feels his heart beat in his ears. He can’t think and he can’t hear and he can’t focus because she’s looking at him with a deer-in-the-headlights look that morphs into flushed cheeks and a breathless smile and he doesn’t think that he’s ever seen her look so beautiful before.

Every day she finds a way to out-do herself and surpass the expectations that he had set for her the day before and he can’t believe that something like that is even possible. It’s in this moment, with his hand around her wrist and her gaze locked on his without blinking but definitely seeing him, that he realizes just how much she means to him. His heart is swelling up behind his rib-cage and he finds himself tumbling into an infatuation with her that he can’t believe hadn’t surpassed this point before with all of the glances that she’s stolen and the times that their eyes have met or their fingertips have brushed in the passage of coffee.

“And I just…I want to take you out sometime—n-not to set, that is—if you’d like? I can’t promise a lot, since people know me and…But what I can promise is a nice night in with the best damn food that I can buy and a couple of movies. Is that good for you?” He feels his words come out confident even though he’s the farthest things from. His heart is beating so fast now that he feels as though it might burst through his chest.

And then she’s smiling so bright that he thinks she might make the stars jealous. And then her face is leaning in close to his and he can’t breathe—oh my  _God_ he can’t breathe—and his head is spinning just before her lips meet his. She takes the time to laugh before she presses her lips to his in the way that only she could because he’s never met someone who would find something to laugh about before they kissed another person, but she’s not just anyone. She’s (Y/N), and that makes all the difference in the world.

When she pulls away from his lips with her feather-light touch that leaves him chasing for more, Tom can’t help but notice the smile forming over her lips as she holds his hand in hers. She slips her fingers into his after she gets his hand to move from her wrist so that she can hold it in her own and give it the softest squeeze he thinks he’s ever received.

“I don’t think that I’ve ever wanted anything more, Tom,” she admits with a blush so gentle that Tom almost doesn’t see it.

But when he does, he feels his heart stop because she’s going to let him take her out and there’s going to be a beginning to their playlist-fueled romance. And it’s in that moment that Tom finds himself thanking this movie and the carpool that was set up more than he’s ever thanked anyone or anything before in his life.

 _To carpools and playlists,_ he thinks with a soft smile forming over his lips as he leans forward to press a kiss to her lips to seal their deal of a date that still sends his mind reeling,  _I owe you everything._


End file.
